Nowadays NFL content is widespread, NFL fans have their pick of the litter of what network they want to watch to get their information on all things football. Guys like Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer give us live, up to the minute information about players, teams, and whatever else a fan or bettor may want to know.
But it wasn’t always that easy as author Rich Podolsky says in his new book You Are Looking Live: How The NFL Today Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting.
In this book, Podolsky details how the debut of The NFL Today way back in 1974 changed the way fans consumed sports. He sat down with Awful Announcing for an interview about the new book.
“Back in 1975, there were only three stations: CBS, NBC, and ABC, There was no cable. There was no ESPN; ESPN was six years away. There was no internet. There was no way to get more information about the NFL.“ he said.
The show was transcendent in many particular ways, it was the first NFL pregame show to be live and not recorded ahead of time. One of the four on the show was ”Jimmy The Greek” who was known for his sports betting columns across the country. Another was Phyllis George who was a Miss America model before becoming a pioneer for all women in sports media.
These two things were unheard of at the time, sports betting is just starting to get accepted in the world of sports media nowadays, and someone with little to no experience being on air on top of being a woman in the 1970s talking sports was unprecedented.
“When Phyllis passed away so suddenly, I started reconnecting with a lot of my old CBS cohorts.” Podolsky recalled. “As I was reconnecting with everyone, it hit me how much The NFL Today back in those days, back in the ’70s, meant to all of us and how much it impacted our lives.
Podolsky had personal ties to The NFL Today, as he wrote for the show back in 1977 as he detailed those years to be the “five of the happiest years in my life”.